As students around the world have experienced, this last school year has been difficult and has presented many different challenges. Some students had the luxury of being able to return to school as long as they wore a mask, but I had a different experience since I spent my entire year in e-learning.

Some students moved back and forth between e-learning and in-person classes, but I can personally say that exclusively e-learning had its ups and downs.  The major upside was the ability to learn from the comfort of my own home; the major downside was not being able to experience fully all the social and academic aspects of the year.

For example, instead of being in class with friends and getting a more hands-on education, I was at home trying my best to keep up and understand things from behind a screen.

All in all, senior year wasn’t that bad though. Teachers tried their hardest to keep up with the balancing act of teaching two sets of classes, one being in person and the other being online. With the combined efforts of teachers and students, we managed to stay afloat even with the occasional setback. I respect the work everyone put in and I acknowledge that everyone had it hard this yearn but speaking for my fellow full-time e-learners, I feel like we had it the hardest.

Oftentimes teachers couldn’t answer our questions or would go too fast for us, since we were online and they were giving more attention to the in-person students. This was extremely frustrating and made it harder to maintain good grades while handling everyday problems.

With everything I just said it would seem like senior year was  grueling, long, and painful, and it was.  But I still get a bittersweet feeling in my chest whenever I think back about how it is almost over. I enjoyed my time at Mount Carmel and will treasure it forever.

So again, all in all, senior year wasn’t that bad, but I would much rather not have a repeat of this year in the future.